Following Aristotle and Aquinas, it is customary to distinguish commutative justice, which deals with the relations that arise between individuals, between individuals and groups, and between groups that comprise any given community, from distributive justice, which deals with the overarching relation of that community as a whole to all of its constituent individuals and groups. Continue reading the poverty of libertarianism

Spanish designer Isabel Mastache introduced these devices at Cibeles Madrid Fashion Week for Fall 2010. Be it prosthetic or protective, their martial fashion vindicates the position of Panurge:

Au reguard du hault de chausses, ma grande tante Laurence jadis me disoit, qu’il estoit faict pour la braguette. Je le croy, en pareille induction, que le gentil falot Galen lib. 9. de l’usage de nos membres, dict la teste estre faicte pour les yeulx.
—François Rabelais, Tiers livre des faictz et dictz Heroïques du noble Pantagruel, Chapitre 7: « Comment Panurge avoit la pusse en l’aureille, & desista porter sa magnificque braguette. »
In what concerneth the breeches, my great-aunt Laurence did long ago tell me, that the breeches were only ordained for the use of the codpiece, and to no other end; which I, upon a no less forcible consequence, give credit to every whit, as well as to the saying of the fine fellow Galen, who in his ninth book, Of the Use and Employment of our Members, allegeth that the head was made for the eyes.
—Gargantua and Pantagruel, The Third Book, Chapter VII: “How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece.” Translated into English by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux.

Soderbergh’s treatment explains the cult of Che Guevara for me. Its grounds are not to be found in the fighter’s altruism looking out for the victims of oppression contrary to their will welcoming its violation. Neither is the would-be liberator morally disqualified by the resistance of his potential beneficiaries; for what good is his intelligence, if not to warrant his authority to speak and act on their benighted behalves? Be it due to sacrificial selflessness or intellectual vanity, Che’s capacity for staying pissed off makes him stand out.

Anticipating his own political martyrdom, Cicero commented on an earlier occasion of noble failure: “utaegroto, dumanimaest, spesessedicitur”. (Letters to Atticus9.10.3.) To the sick, while there is life there is hope. Proverbial wisdom condensed Ciceronian dicta to expand their purview: “dum spiro spero”; while I breathe I hope. But to the truly outraged, hope is beside the point. Suffice unto them to spew forth. Dum spiro sputo.